The People of the Abyss eBook

When the people who try to help cease their playing
and dabbling with day nurseries and Japanese art exhibits
and go back and learn their West End and the sociology
of Christ, they will be in better shape to buckle down
to the work they ought to be doing in the world.
And if they do buckle down to the work, they will
follow Dr. Barnardo’s lead, only on a scale
as large as the nation is large. They won’t
cram yearnings for the Beautiful, and True, and Good
down the throat of the woman making violets for three
farthings a gross, but they will make somebody get
off her back and quit cramming himself till, like
the Romans, he must go to a bath and sweat it out.
And to their consternation, they will find that they
will have to get off that woman’s back themselves,
as well as the backs of a few other women and children
they did not dream they were riding upon.

CHAPTER XXVII—­THE MANAGEMENT

In this final chapter it were well to look at the
Social Abyss in its widest aspect, and to put certain
questions to Civilisation, by the answers to which
Civilisation must stand or fall. For instance,
has Civilisation bettered the lot of man? “Man,”
I use in its democratic sense, meaning the average
man. So the question re-shapes itself: Has
Civilisation bettered the lot of the average man?

Let us see. In Alaska, along the banks of the
Yukon River, near its mouth, live the Innuit folk.
They are a very primitive people, manifesting but
mere glimmering adumbrations of that tremendous artifice,
Civilisation. Their capital amounts possibly
to 2 pounds per head. They hunt and fish for
their food with bone-headed spews and arrows.
They never suffer from lack of shelter. Their
clothes, largely made from the skins of animals, are
warm. They always have fuel for their fires,
likewise timber for their houses, which they build
partly underground, and in which they lie snugly during
the periods of intense cold. In the summer they
live in tents, open to every breeze and cool.
They are healthy, and strong, and happy. Their
one problem is food. They have their times of
plenty and times of famine. In good times they
feast; in bad times they die of starvation.
But starvation, as a chronic condition, present with
a large number of them all the time, is a thing unknown.
Further, they have no debts.

In the United Kingdom, on the rim of the Western Ocean,
live the English folk. They are a consummately
civilised people. Their capital amounts to at
least 300 pounds per head. They gain their food,
not by hunting and fishing, but by toil at colossal
artifices. For the most part, they suffer from
lack of shelter. The greater number of them are
vilely housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them
warm, and are insufficiently clothed. A constant
number never have any houses at all, and sleep shelterless
under the stars. Many are to be found, winter